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A patient recruiter and a therapy staffing company owner were sentenced today to serve 50 months and 46 months in prison, respectively, for their participation in a $7 million health care fraud scheme involving defunct home health care company Anna Nursing Services Corp.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Steinbach of the FBI’s Miami Field Office and Special Agent in Charge Christopher B. Dennis of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) Office of Investigations Miami Office made the announcement.
Ivan Alejo, 48, and Hugo Morales, 37, both of Miami, were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jose E. Martinez in the Southern District of Florida. In addition to their prison terms, Alejo and Morales were both sentenced to serve three years of supervised release. Alejo and Morales were also ordered to pay jointly and severally with their co-defendants $6,928,931 and $1,958,279, respectively, in restitution.
In August 2013, Alejo and Morales pleaded guilty before Judge Martinez to conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Alejo worked as a patient recruiter at Anna Nursing, a Miami home health care agency that purported to provide home health and therapy services to Medicare beneficiaries. Morales owned a therapy staffing company, Professionals Therapy Staffing Services Inc., which provided therapists to Anna Nursing.
According to court documents, co-conspirators of Alejo and Morales operated Anna Nursing for the purpose of billing the Medicare Program for, among other things, expensive physical therapy and home health care services that were not medically necessary and/or not provided.
Alejo’s primary role in the scheme at Anna Nursing involved negotiating and paying kickbacks and bribes, interacting with patient recruiters and assisting in the submission of fraudulent claims to the Medicare program. Alejo and his co-conspirators would pay kickbacks and bribes to patient recruiters in return for the recruiters providing patients to Anna Nursing for home health and therapy services that were medically unnecessary and/or not provided. Alejo and his co-conspirators would pay kickbacks and bribes to co-conspirators in doctors’ offices and clinics in exchange for home health and therapy prescriptions, medical certifications and other documentation. Alejo and his co-conspirators would use the prescriptions, medical certifications and other documentation to fraudulently bill the Medicare program for home health care services, which Alejo knew was in violation of federal criminal laws.
Morales’s primary role in the scheme at Anna Nursing involved operating Professionals Therapy, where he and others created fictitious progress notes and other patient files indicating that therapists from Professionals Therapy had provided physical or occupational therapy services to particular Medicare beneficiaries, when in many instances those services had not been provided and/or were not medically necessary. Morales knew the documents he and others from Professionals Therapy falsified were used to support false claims for home health care services billed to Medicare by his co-conspirators at Anna Nursing, which Morales knew was in violation of federal criminal laws.
From approximately October 2010 through approximately April 2013, Anna Nursing was paid by Medicare approximately $7 million for fraudulent claims for home health care services that were not medically necessary and/or not provided.
The case was investigated by the FBI and HHS-OIG and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, under the supervision of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. This case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney A. Brendan Stewart of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, now operating in nine cities across the country, has charged more than 1,700 defendants who have collectively billed the Medicare program for more than $5.5 billion. In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with HHS-OIG, are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.